Everyone is back to school/work today! I spent much of yesterday feeling a bit downcast about this, but now that everyone is out the door and my house is quiet – except for the happy Baby, playing with her Littlest Pet Shop toys from Christmas, and singing Jingle Bells again, God help me – it’s quite lovely. And it’s probably for the best that we’re forced back into our regular routine, since having my husband home for nearly TWO WEEKS caused us to nearly get beri-beri or rickets or some other exotic malnutrition-related disease.
I made some half-hearted Eating Healthier resolutions for this year, but a) we already think we eat quite healthily, with little apparent effect that I can see and b) it’s mostly just code for "I want to lose a lot of weight". But the post-Christmas season of lazing around, eating nothing but appetizers and leftover Clementines have made certain glaring deficiencies in our diets a lot more obvious. We are a lazy, lazy people. Apparently, only the structure of the school year and the work week keeps us fed at all – over the break, the kids floated around the house unbreakfasted until midmorning, supper a question mark at 5:30 instead of a certainty, an answer I’ve known for a week. And so now we all have bad, chesty colds and the relationship between our half-hazard eating patterns and our health seems more obvious.
So yes, this year we’ve resolved to eat healthier. We’ve also resolved to stop eating so decadently, to start spending substantially less on groceries and then to pass on the savings to local children’s hunger groups. Our part of the world is being hit REALLY hard by the financial crises, and we’ve decided that it’s no longer moral to keep eating like life is one big Greco-Roman feast.
One thing that’s always startled me about old photos is how grown-up everyone looks – serious people in suits and proper dresses, serious people for a serious time. Looking at them makes me feel ridiculous in my jeans and hoodies and sneakers, makes me feel like a perpetual toddler, someone who has been protected from serious choices and consequences. And lounging around the house over the past two weeks, with my husband and I barely even changing out of our goofy pajamas and eating snacks instead of dinner and playing Guitar Hero – as fun as it was – really made me feel like we’d backslid on our already tenuous adulthood, that we’d skidded all the way back to our teen years.
This morning my husband got up in the dark and the cold of the morning and put on his workclothes, and I watched out the window while the car lights disappeared off into the distance. Then I sighed and made a big pot of No Fun Oatmeal for the kids’ breakfast, got back to the daily work of adulthood, with my secret promise that this year we will be serious people, people who will look like real grown-ups when our pictures are old.
The subjects in old photos looked serious because it took so long to take a photo. The exposure time could be up to ten minutes. Try staying perfectly still and holding a smile for that long. No wonder they looked so serious.
Just remember that in order to look that serious and grown up in pictures, you will have to a) wear some really constrictive clothing which barely allows enough chest movement by which to obtain oxygen for BREATHING and b) find a very slow photographer – most of those people aren’t smiling because taking one picture took 10-20 minutes or more and who wants to have THAT kind of grin stuck on their face. Good luck though, in all seriousness.
Yes, there is a sense of grandeur and decorum in old photos. But have you noticed that nobody ever looks happy?? Not even at happy occasions like weddings, and the children even look unhappy!
I think in life there is a place for formal, and there is a place for casual. Two weeks of stolen family time in a very busy life is a wonderful gift, and you were right to forget the “rules” and eat appetizers for lunch in your jam-jams. Your children will thank you in years to come for the family time and memories!
I completely “got” this post! I’ve marveled at our own diets and wondered how we could possibly get sick as much as we do, it baffles me…I THINK we eat healthy, but I must admit to a certain amount of grazing on comfort snacks and such as well!~ I love the donating to hunger while cutting back on yoru food bill, that is lovely!
oh gosh, we too are totally coming out of the holiday haze. add on a time change and jet lag (2 hours can make a huge difference when it comes to bedtime!).
p.s.
We should comb blogworld for recipes that say, “hearty but cheap.” Because I am cutting back on the food bill, too.
(… or attempting to, anyway. It does begin to be ridiculous at some point!)
Sometimes I feel 80ish.
But sometimes I, too, wonder when I’m going to GET MATURE, already.
My grandmother, now… hasn’t she been 80 for half a century or something?
There must be a balance in there somewhere. Maybe I’ll find it… one day.
I know *exactly* what you mean, beck. Sometimes I look at old photos too and wonder what we’re playing at exactly? But don’t take ALL the fun out of it–I think it’s okay to not be too serious–it keeps us young, right?
Hate to burst your bubble, but my resolution is all about getting rid of my big fat butt. But spending less on groceries might fit well into this new regime!
oh come on. Where’s the fun in that? I live to revel in my inner teenager and you have just made me feel better about it.
I think in the last couple of years I’ve stopped feeling like I am just playing at being a grownup.
I vow to eat healthier and be thinner too!
I was so relieved to get back to responsible adulthood today. I can only take so much lazing around like teenagers, which is probably why I got married as a teenager…I just need more structure than that. Though, I’m quite GOOD at lazing around.
We were back at the school/therapy routine today and it nearly killed me. My resolution is to take care of myself for once. I’ve had this kid with special needs and I’ve put my own health off for 3 years. Tomorrow I get a breast scan and see a new family doctor. So far, so good.
We’ve been decadent and lazy here too. Lots of overeating and pajama wearing. Today I was not lazy or decadent though and it wasn’t nearly as much fun, but it was kind of good. Making me feel like there really is too much of a good thing.
THe funny thing about this post is that I always worry the pictures of me will leave me looking stressed out and unhappy, and I hope desperately that’s not the legacy of memories I am leaving for my children. I’d be OK if I looked like a happy carefree kid. Relieved in fact.
(My comments on your posts often seem like they should be posts of my own. You’re quite inspirational that way.)
we’ve been decadent and sleepy, too. time to get back at it, i guess.
i’ve always had that same thought about old photos, and about my protracted adolescence. i feel sometimes like i need more starch (not in my food — in my collar.)
I always think people look so old, too. I looked at some old year books, at all the highschoolers looked like they were 35.
I always feed my kids appetizers, for every meal except dinner, if by “appetizers” you mean “something that can be eaten with no preparation,” like crackers & cheese or sausage slices w/ carrots or a banana w/ raisins and peanuts. No mess, no fuss.
I just have to be really sure there’s no “garbage food” in the house, like pretzels or cheese puffs, or I’ll end up dumping those on their plate!
I say forget looking grown up. I would rather look at my photos and remember the fun (no matter how juvenile it was) than look stiff and grumpy (which is how I feel a lot when I am acting grown up).
I wish I could say that we eat pretty healthily most of the time. We just veer from the ridiculous to more or less ridiculous. I did make a menu for this week, though! If we follow it, we will land on the less ridiculous end of the spectrum.
For me, I feel like I have so many issues to focus on that this year ahead seems overwhelming. Do I pick one thing to work on or tackle everything? I don’t know. I wish I was a kid because I would sure like for a grown up to boss me around right now! 😉
Happy New Year Beck!
That’s a great resolution to give to children’s hunger groups.
You’re so right about old pictures. Dressing up tends to be a lost practice now.
Funny, isn’t it, how we as a society mark our ability for leisure time with casuals? Oh, we’re so important and ahead of it all that we don’t need to be formal. We’re hip, we’re it, we’re on the cutting edge of it all.
Well, not so much you and I, just society, you see? Kinda like how a sun tan used to suggest you worked in the field. Now a suit suggests you might.
Ya, hours of funny laughs over that one.
Serious? Do we have to be serious? (But we’re definitely gonna eat our leftovers. We are being way too wasteful. I’m going to start by making sure every last dessert is eaten, dammit!)
There is something comforting to me about getting back to the job of being a grown up this week. I can only take so much Christmas cheer.
Also, I think it’s awesome that you are supporting local children’s hunger groups. We always give earnetsly to various charities at Christmas and I’m trying to determine how we can keep that steady throughout the year.
It is always a bittersweet time for me … the end of the festivities and the beginning of the normal routine. I miss it, and yet when I am in it I look forward to being out of it somehow.
I guess that is why God gave us seasons and made a time for everything. We move on …
Have a happy New Year full of healthy eating and growing up. But not too much.
My husband has been home for the past two weeks and our schedule went kaput, too. After 10 days of sleeping till 11 AM my 6 y.o. WILL. NOT. WAKE. UP. Okay, so some structure is a good thing.
On a cooking related note: I’m making King Cake for Epiphany. What is candied citron? Will candied pineapple suffice if I grate it very finely?
Verne went back to work today too, mush to his dismay. I’ve been cleaning, and doing laundry, planning dinner, and schooling children. Ahhhh… it feels good to have a routine again!
I sent Scott off to work today in his grown-up overcoat and new grown man hat and plaid wool scarf. He said he felt like he was from the 1950s, but he looked so dashing and, well, adult standing next to me in my sweats.